The Obama administration has kept its distance from Israel and the wartime support from the USA may not be relied upon for the first time since Israel became an independent country.
Report from the Rocket Zone
By P. David Hornik On November 16, 2012 @ 12:50 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 5 Comments
By Thursday night Israel was well into its second war against the Gaza terror statelet since Israel’s ill-considered “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005, a move widely hailed at the time as ushering in a new era of peace.
The year leading up to the first Gaza war, 2008, saw over a thousand rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza. In 2009 and 2010, the years after that war, the attacks declined steeply; then they began to rise again and this year, 2012, had reached about 800 before Israel, on Wednesday, finally started to fight back again.
Israel launched the campaign on Wednesday afternoon with two major, successful hits: a lethal aerial strike on Ahmad Jabari, head of Hamas’s military wing and the most senior Hamas figure in the Strip, known especially to Israelis for masterminding the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit; and a series of strikes against Hamas’s Iranian-made long-range Fajr missiles, considered strategic because of their ability to hit the Tel Aviv area in central Israel.
Since then southern Israel has been enveloped in rocket firings from Gaza. On Thursday morning three people were killed in the town of Kiryat Malachi, 18 miles from Gaza, when a rocket made a direct hit on a building there. In my city, Beersheva, 25 miles from Gaza, the attacks have been so frequent that this article is literally being written in intervals between air-raid sirens. So far the city’s Iron Dome battery has intercepted most of the rockets and no serious injuries have been reported.
Israel was further stunned on Thursday night when, for the first time ever, rockets from Gaza hit the greater Tel Aviv area, indicating that the air force had not managed to destroy all the Fajrs and signaling a strategic escalation on Hamas’s part. Israel, for its part, had hit over 200 targets in Gaza including terror hubs and arms caches.
On Thursday morning the Israeli air force dropped leaflets on Gaza warning civilians to stay out of the line of fire.
The year leading up to the first Gaza war, 2008, saw over a thousand rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza. In 2009 and 2010, the years after that war, the attacks declined steeply; then they began to rise again and this year, 2012, had reached about 800 before Israel, on Wednesday, finally started to fight back again.
Israel launched the campaign on Wednesday afternoon with two major, successful hits: a lethal aerial strike on Ahmad Jabari, head of Hamas’s military wing and the most senior Hamas figure in the Strip, known especially to Israelis for masterminding the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit; and a series of strikes against Hamas’s Iranian-made long-range Fajr missiles, considered strategic because of their ability to hit the Tel Aviv area in central Israel.
Since then southern Israel has been enveloped in rocket firings from Gaza. On Thursday morning three people were killed in the town of Kiryat Malachi, 18 miles from Gaza, when a rocket made a direct hit on a building there. In my city, Beersheva, 25 miles from Gaza, the attacks have been so frequent that this article is literally being written in intervals between air-raid sirens. So far the city’s Iron Dome battery has intercepted most of the rockets and no serious injuries have been reported.
Israel was further stunned on Thursday night when, for the first time ever, rockets from Gaza hit the greater Tel Aviv area, indicating that the air force had not managed to destroy all the Fajrs and signaling a strategic escalation on Hamas’s part. Israel, for its part, had hit over 200 targets in Gaza including terror hubs and arms caches.
On Thursday morning the Israeli air force dropped leaflets on Gaza warning civilians to stay out of the line of fire.
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